


The One Who Woke You

by Snowgrouse



Category: Thief of Bagdad (1940), كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة | Kitaab 'alf layla wa-layla | One Thousand and One Nights
Genre: Angst, F/M, Missing Scene, Romance, The Thousand And One Nights - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 03:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowgrouse/pseuds/Snowgrouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaffar dreams of awakening the Princess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Who Woke You

**Author's Note:**

> Jaffar's POV: what goes through his mind when he keeps watch beside the Princess's bed.

At night, he keeps vigil by her bed. And as she dreams, he dreams with her.

***

He sits beside her bed, just like he does every night. He yearns to touch her, yearns to feel the warmth of her skin, yearns to feel her weight in his arms. He holds his hand out to hers and it trembles, the same way it does in his waking hours whenever he's near her, his entire body shaking as if with fever. He's always two fingersbreadths away from touching her, enough to feel the heat radiating off her body, enough to inhale her perfume of sandalwood and roses. Her beauty terrifies him: it is as cold as it is warm, as forbidding as it is inviting. He gazes at the soft curves of her body, remembers the soft golden light of her eyes when they were open, and thinks of what a sweet lover she would be in his bed, what a wonderful mother she would make for their children. He knows there is warmth in those eyes, a deep gentleness and love that could nurture the world, knows there is a hidden majesty within her to make her the greatest of queens. Yet to him, she is as haughty as a virgin goddess carved out of stone, cold and unresponding even if he is offering his very heart at her altar. With her beauty, she has cursed him, rendered him weak. She's taken him, the greatest man in all of Persia, and has emasculated him, made all his spells useless. Therefore, as a knower of magic and its rules, its correspondences, he knows it's only through her love that he can be returned to himself. When she takes him in her arms, he will be whole again, a man again.

He cannot touch her, yet in the dream he does, knowing he is dreaming, knowing it is unreal when his hand closes around hers and her body heat merges with his. His breath stops when she turns her head and murmurs "Jaffar" in her sleep, murmurs his name sweetly like that of a lost lover. Quivering, quivering, he climbs into bed with her, gathers her into his arms and kisses her with a gentleness that is alien to his heart, like the gentleness of some man not himself. It is a strange thing to feel, to love so much you do not know yourself, and it is a strange new Jaffar that now holds his beloved tenderly to his heart.

When she kisses him back and moans into his mouth, his entire body convulses, and he has never felt a pain like this before, not in the battles of passion or illness or war. He cannot breathe, cannot speak as she pulls back, her eyes now open as she gazes upon him with love--yes, _love,_ like she has never loved before. 

"Jaffar," she breathes, smiles in recognition, "You came for me," so full of elation tears fill her eyes. 

_And I will never leave you again,_ he promises her with his eyes, with his kisses, with his fingers combing perfume from her hair. 

And when he pulls back they are naked, skin against skin, flesh against flesh, heartbeat against heartbeat. She cries as he enters her, cries and trembles around him, her hands fluttering over his back like the wings of a frightened bird. He kisses her to soothe her, and she tells him it is but joy that makes her cry so, as she wraps her legs around him and pulls him close. "Take me," she whispers onto his lips, yet it is he who is the one being taken. Again and again he makes love to her, with his mouth, hands, his entire body, worshipping her with his every atom, giving himself to her until he is saturated with her love. His jaw and tongue ache from tasting her, pain dances all over his back and hips from taking her and yet he can't stop rolling into her, drinking her into himself. He sees his own tears splashing onto her chest, _a wedding necklace wrought from my heart, more precious than any jewels_ , a sob shattering in his throat. She smiles, smiles, and then he can see no more as he falls into her, melts into her love, into the scent of sandalwood and roses. 

***

He keeps his eyes closed for a long while, nuzzling her hand, pretending he is not awake yet. For he wishes and wishes that his awakening was the true sleep, because nightmares can be shaken off, dissolved in daylight. And yet it is his happiness that the sun dissolves with its cruel fingers, his heart that breaks as again, she turns her head in her sleep and murmurs _"Ahmad."_


End file.
